


The Terror from Under the Bay

by MiladyDragon



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Christmas, Humor, Ianto Jones rules every Universe, Ianto is having a bad day, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 18:42:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9561857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiladyDragon/pseuds/MiladyDragon
Summary: Ianto Jones was having a bad day: it was freezing; his sister wanted him to visit for Christmas; the team was in the holiday spirit; and there was something lurking under the frozen Bay.  Really, all he'd wanted to do was spend time with Jack...





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for Torchwood Fest over Christmas, based on a prompt by m_findlow: A sudden cold snap hits Cardiff, and there's something hiding underneath the frozen surface of the bay. I'm just now posting it here. This is not connected to any sort of universe I've written so far. 
> 
> There is crack in this. And a monster that may or may not be vaguely recognizable as someone famous.

 

_There was a shadow gliding in the water._

_It was utterly silent, cutting through the chill of the ocean as it headed toward the shallower water of the bay, the relative warmth of the land calling to it like a siren’s song._

_As the silt of the sea floor rose, so did it._

_Until it hit its head against the thick layer of ice that had built up practically overnight._

_Well,_ that _was unexpected…_

********** 

 

_“You’re not getting out of Christmas this year, Ianto Jones!  Your boss can certainly spare you for one bloody night!”_

Ianto held the mobile away from his ear as his sister ranted on about the last three Christmases he’d missed because of work. 

_“And just what does the Tourism Board need you on a holiday, anyway?”_  Rhiannon went on.

“There are plenty of tourists on the holidays, Rhi.”

_“But every holiday?  Really?  You can’t arrange some sort of time off at least once? Your niece and nephew are forgetting what you look like!”_

Ianto barely stifled his sigh, knowing if she heard it, Rhiannon would take it as a sign of capitulation and that was the last thing he needed at the moment. It was bad enough he felt as if he was freezing his arse off as he waited by the SUV for Jack to finish packing away the latest alien artefact to get belched out of the Rift.

The unexpected cold snap to hit Cardiff right before the holidays had practically brought the city to a halt under the weight of the snow and the ice that had formed on exposed electrical cables and buildings.  There had been at least half a dozen areas of the city that had been blacked out, and the water tower on the Plass resembled an abstract ice sculpture.  Schools had closed down earlier than scheduled – which most likely explained a little of Rhiannon’s ire, it was just aimed at him because she wasn’t the sort to take it out on the kids, and Ianto knew from experience that Johnny would simply ignore her and watch the telly until she cooled down. 

Still, it wasn’t helping his own temper any.

It also didn’t help that Cardiff seemed the only city in the UK that had been affected, which only made the residents even more resentful of the holidays than ever before.  At least it wasn’t London; Ianto had heard rumours that the city leaders had been considering cancelling the season just to keep the aliens from invading for once.

Of course, only the team knew this was Rift-related.  Which meant that the weather forecasters were getting all sorts of hate mail for missing the mark so completely when, really, they’d had no idea that the city sat on a whacking great crack in the time/space continuum that had the tendency to affect the climate around Cardiff.  Ianto had an entire filing cabinet in the Archives dedicated to “Rift-based weather phenomena” that was quite comprehensive.

_“Besides,”_ Rhiannon added, _“you can’t tell me that there’s tourists out in this weather.”_

She had a point.  Hell, _no_ _one_ was out in this weather.  Not even those nutters who loved ice and snow.  Only him and Jack, because of the alert that had sent them out in this shit in the first place.  It had ruined Ianto’s plans of dragging Jack back to his and the two of them crawling into bed and burrowing into the largest and comfiest blanket nest _ever_.  He wasn’t at all happy about _that_. 

But then, Jack was one of those nutters, having grown up on a desert world that had never had snow to begin with.  Ianto had once commented that, surely, after so long in Cardiff his lover would have gotten all the cold he could handle, but Jack had simply grinned like a child and had insisted the entire team go out and build snowmen.    

Sometimes it was difficult being the adult in their relationship.

Ianto felt the SUV’s body jiggle slightly, signalling that Jack had closed the boot.  Ianto had to cut the call short; he really shouldn’t have answered in the first place, as it was highly unprofessional to take a personal call in the middle of a retrieval.  However, when his mobile had rung, Jack had made a vague hand wavy gesture that Ianto had interpreted as permission to take the call.  Seeing it was Rhiannon, Ianto had figured it was better to get it over with than let her go to voicemail, which would have made the situation that much worse.

“I need to go,” he said, “but I’ll call tomorrow, okay?”

There was silence on the other end of the line, and then Rhiannon sighed. _“Fine.  Go do whatever it is you do, and I’ll talk to you later.”_ She paused for a moment, and suddenly Ianto felt like a complete and utter arse.  It was amazing what that particular lack of sound could do to him, but then Rhiannon was a mother and knew the strategic value of disappointed silences.  It made him feel like he was five years old all over again, and he hated it.  _“You know I love you, right?”_

“I do,” he answered.  “I love you, too.  And I’ll talk to you tomorrow.  I promise.”  He really shouldn’t make that sort of promise, not with the job he did, but he felt he needed to say _something_ to mitigate the conversation they’d just had. 

_“You better.”_

Ianto disconnected the call, sighing.  It made him angry that he had to keep brushing her off, but it was an anger directed at himself and not at her.

“Should I be jealous?”

He glanced up.  Jack was leaning against the side of the SUV, arms crossed over his chest, his blue eyes regarding Ianto closely.  There was an expression in them that the Welshman couldn’t quite read, despite having gotten pretty good at interpreting his lover’s body language.  His gaze was guarded, as if he were preparing himself for whatever Ianto was going to say.

“My sister,” Ianto explained.  “Apparently, I’m not getting off the hook for Christmas this year.”

“You shouldn’t let your relationship with her slide.”  Relief flickered in Jack’s eyes, and it made Ianto even angrier at himself because he’d somehow caused the man he…cared for very much to doubt like that.

The eye roll was contained mainly because Ianto knew that Jack was totally serious and didn’t much care that he had absolutely nothing in common with Rhiannon any longer, and the idea of spending a noisy Christmas day with the kids just wasn’t something he was interested in.  Family was important to Jack simply because he didn’t have any. 

What he wasn’t going to admit was that he’d rather be spending the holiday with Jack, because he wasn’t sure how that would go over.  This thing between them was just new enough that Ianto was afraid he’d overstep, and the last thing he wanted to do was risk what could be the best relationship of his life simply because he’d moved too fast.

“Let’s get back to the Hub,” he said instead. “I’m freezing my balls off out here.”

That brought a leer to Jack’s face.  “Maybe I should do an inspection to make sure everything’s still in its place.”

A smirk pulled at Ianto’s lips, glad they were off _that_ particular subject and back on solid – albeit icy – ground. “You know I’d welcome any sort of inspection you’d care to do, _Sir_.”

Jack growled possessively, his eyes darkening.  Ianto suddenly couldn’t wait to get back to the Hub, because a possessive Jack was a horny Jack, and it was one of his favourite moods _ever_.

 

********** 

 

_It examined the ice over its head.  It was far thicker than any ice it had ever run into, literally or figuratively.  Certainly its nuclear fire could take care of it, but that would telegraph its presence to the natives far sooner than it wanted, and it enjoyed the element of surprise far too much to risk it._

_This was certainly inconvenient._

********** 

 

Instead of getting pounced on once back at the Hub like he’d been looking forward to, Ianto instead found himself facing what looked as if a lorry load of tinsel had exploded all over the place.

Disappointment wasn’t strong enough a word for how that felt.

Ianto stood there, hands on his hips, already plotting the serving of cold decaf to everyone involved in the mess the Hub now was in.  Which looked to be only Gwen at that point, as Owen and Toshiko were nowhere to be seen.  Most likely they were hiding, which meant they’d known they were messing up even before Ianto had arrived on the scene, and yet they did it anyway.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, looking as if she’d been caught with her hand in the biscuit jar.  “We didn’t expect you back so early.”  She glanced around the Hub, an expression of shocked outrage on her face when she realised she’d been deserted in her hour of need by her accomplices.

Ianto didn’t even know his foot was tapping until he had to make it stop. 

“Your right eye is twitching,” Jack pointed out, sounding positively gleeful.  One more for the decaf, then.  And see if Jack was going to be getting any sort of ‘inspection’ done on Ianto’s person tonight.

“Is there a reason someone vomited Christmas decorations all over _my_ Hub?” Ianto said, surprised that his voice was so calm.  And yes, while Jack might have lived there for decades, the Hub was very much Ianto’s.  No one knew more about the place than he did, after all.

Gwen went pale.  Good.  She knew what sort of trouble she was in.

“Goddess,” Jack purred, from where he was standing just behind Ianto, “do you have any idea how hot you are right now?”

Well, _that_ comment was a little gratifying.  It wasn’t getting Jack any favours, though, not in the current mood Ianto was in.

“But it’s Christmas!” Gwen exclaimed.  She was still up on the step stool she’d been using to hang plastic holly branches over Toshiko’s workstation, as if she was frozen in position. 

Given the fact that the Hub’s furnace system was working at top efficiency despite the abnormally cold conditions outside, that was really impossible.  Ianto was inordinately happy that his displeasure was so very effective against his teammates.

“And Christmas gives you free reign to clutter up our workplace?”

Gwen’s mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out.

“Ianto,” Jack said, “don’t you think you’re being a little harsh?  It’s only a few decorations…”

He whirled to face his lover.  “There’s decorations,” he pointed out, grinding his teeth, “and then there’s looking as if the Rift picked up the entire holiday section of Tesco’s and deposited it within the Hub!  And we all know who’s going to get stuck cleaning up this mess on Boxing Day!”

Jack’s eyes were wide with surprise at the outburst, and he opened his mouth to speak, but Ianto didn’t let him get it out.

“Then there’s Myfanwy…what’s going to happen if she accidentally eats any of this stuff?  Do we even know what ingesting plastic will do to her?”  There was a part of him that realised Ianto was possibly being a bit harsh, but really, with Rhiannon banging on about Christmas, the Rift-induced cold snap, not being jumped by his lover once they’d reached the Hub, and now this…it had just built up and there was no way it was staying bottled up inside.

Gwen at least looked contrite, and she began to unwind the ugly fake holly from the struts around Toshiko’s station.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t even think about Myfanwy…”

For some reason, that made Ianto even angrier.  Myfanwy lived there, after all; it was certainly more her place than Gwen’s, as far as the Welshman was concerned. 

Still, losing his temper was undignified, and he didn’t want to do that; besides, revenge was something best served cold.  Plus, it wasn’t Gwen’s fault that the Christmas spirit was possessing her like some sort of alternate personality that only came out once a year.

So, Ianto turned on his heel and left.  He completely ignored Jack calling his name, and stormed his way out feeling at least partially justified for the strop he was in.

He didn’t stop until he was up on the quay, leaning on the railing and looking out over the frozen bay, glad that he hadn’t removed his coat and gloves when he and Jack had gotten back from the Rift alert.

It really wasn’t any one person’s fault.  It was just all of it, building up over the entire day.  It had started with the near half an inch of ice on his car that morning, then onto Rhiannon’s phone call and then culminating with the mess in the Hub.  It felt as if the universe was ganging up on him today, and while Ianto was used to things going to shit, today had been just plain bad.

Ianto had no idea how long he stood there, but his wallowing was rudely interrupted by a rather loud tapping coming from the bay.

Curious, he leaned forward over the railing and looked down toward the ice that had built up practically overnight.  In the weak sunlight, he could make out a really large shadow under the ice, a vague shape that resembled some sort of claw clicking against the frozen water.

This was just _wonderful_.

“Oh, hell no,” Ianto shouted out toward whatever it was in the bay.  “I am so not putting up with this shit today.  I’m not in the mood to deal with some sort of bloody sea monster attacking Cardiff, so just go bugger off and do that somewhere else!”

In the back of his mind Ianto knew what he was doing was incredibly stupid, but at that point the rant simply couldn’t be stopped.  The last thing he needed today was to have to fight off some sort of creature from the depths who wanted to take out its wrath on Cardiff. 

At that moment, his mobile rang.

Not caring who was calling him, Ianto had it out of his pocket and was yelling, “What?” into the speaker before it even registered what he was doing.

_“Um…Uncle Ianto?”_

Ianto closed his eyes as his anger abruptly left him.  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he sighed, “but Uncle Ianto’s kinda busy at the moment.  You just interrupted something, that’s all.”

_“It’s okay,”_ his niece, Mica, answered somewhat hesitantly. 

“No, it’s not.”  Ianto turned his back on the sea monster in the bay to pay closer attention to Mica.  “I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

He wanted to be irritated that Rhiannon had obviously thought that having Mica to call him and convince him to come to Christmas would work…well, she was probably right about that.  While he certainly wasn’t close to Rhiannon anymore – and don’t get him started on his opinion of Johnny – he actually adored Mica and David to pieces.  He really didn’t see them all that often, mostly because it involved his sister and brother-in-law being there at the same time. 

There was also something about telling a five-year-old _no_ that made Ianto feel like a total twat.

_“Are you coming for Christmas this year?”_ she asked, so innocent and pure that something within Ianto reared its ugly head and demanded that he not disappoint her, as he had his sister. 

He really did want to tell her that he had other plans…which he had done, before Rhiannon had decided to play unfair and have Mica call him up to be all cute and sweet in his ear.  He wanted to go to bed with Jack on Christmas Eve and wake up beside him on Christmas Day, and not have to deal with squealing children and mounds of torn wrapping paper all over the floor…

Oh, wait.

He forgot for a moment who his current…was Jack a boyfriend?  Partner?  Friend with benefits? 

Whatever Jack was to him, it wasn’t going to get Ianto out of cleaning up crap loads of paper ripped to shreds and the noises of joy Jack would make at the presents that Ianto had actually taken out a safety deposit box for in order to hide them from the nosy immortal, because Jack had a sixth sense about such things and even hiding presents in the Archives wasn’t enough to keep him from finding them.

Ianto sighed.  “Yes, Mica,” he capitulated.  “I’ll be there for Christmas.”

The scream that came from the phone nearly deafened him, and he pulled it away from his ear in a last-ditch attempt to save his hearing.  _“MAM!  Uncle Ianto is gonna come after all!  You owe me five pounds!”_

The laughter that bubbled up took him completely by surprise, and Ianto had to lean against the railing in order to keep himself from falling to the icy boards of the quay.  He really should have expected Rhiannon to have actually bribed Mica to call.  “Put your Mam on the line,” he requested, after getting himself back under control.

There was another set of clicking coming from the bay, and Ianto didn’t even turn around; instead, he held out a finger to let the creature know he’d be right with it.  He needed to get the family drama out of the way before he could address the sea monster issue. 

_“Hey, Ianto.”_ Rhiannon didn’t sound at all repentant about sic’ing her daughter on him in a blatant attempt at emotional blackmail.

“You play extremely dirty,” he accused her, not even trying to hide his laughter.

_“It worked, didn’t it?”_

“Yes, it did.”

In that moment Ianto was sorry that he’d let his and Rhiannon’s relationship grow distant.  He hadn’t set out to let it happen, but his moving to London after their father had died, and then his joining Torchwood…and he didn’t even want to get into her marrying Johnny, who Ianto really didn’t like all that well, thinking that his sister could have done so much better. 

The unmistakable sound of ice cracking dispersed Ianto’s melancholy thoughts.  “I really have to go.  I have a lot of work to do if I’m going to be there on Christmas.”

_“Alright.”_ Now that Rhiannon had gotten her way, all was right in the world.  _“We’ll see you on Christmas Eve, and I fully expect you to be staying over for dinner on Christmas Day.”_

“Don’t push your luck.”

Her laugh made him smile despite his being just a tad bit irritated that her manipulation had worked.  _“Bye, Ianto.”_

“Good-bye, Rhi.”

He was chuckling as he put the phone away.  Then Ianto huffed a breath, it crystallising in the freezing air as he turned back to the sea monster, who had managed to break the ice enough to show a very large, very red eye blinking up at him.

“And you,” he waggled his finger at it, “don’t you even think about coming up out of the bay and attacking Cardiff.  We have enough problems as it is, we don’t need you stomping down buildings and causing all sorts of grief.  Go away before I have to get really angry and do something we’ll both regret.”

Alright, it was a bit ridiculous telling off a sea monster, but it had just been that sort of day and all Ianto wanted to do was take Jack back to his and have take-away and a cuddle.  Having to stop a rampaging creature just wasn’t in his plans.

Getting into a staring contest with one was just as weird, but he was Torchwood, and he had weird for breakfast when he wasn’t having coffee and Danish.

There was a huff loud enough from the monster that it actually echoed up from the water, the ice misted up, and then the eye was gone.

Well, that was sorted then.

“You okay?”

Ianto turned to watch as Jack came down the quay, his coat buttoned up to his chin and his hands in his pockets, looking apologetic.  When, in point of fact, Jack really didn’t have anything to apologise for. 

“I’m fine,” Ianto answered, and meaning it.  “Please tell me the Christmas explosion down in the Hub has been gotten under control.”

“It has.  Even Tosh and Owen came out of hiding to help.  I’m not saying all the decorations are down…”

Jack settled in next to him, and Ianto bumped his shoulder in a silent act of forgiveness…not that Jack needed one, but he knew his lover well enough that the Welshman could see that he still felt somewhat responsible.  “And they don’t have to be,” he murmured.  “I’m just saying a little moderation is a good thing.”

“I did manage to salvage this from the proverbial ashes.”  Out of his pocket Jack produced a sprig of mass-produced plastic mistletoe.  He dangled it over his head, hopeful smile on his face.

Ianto couldn’t resist that expression.

Jack’s lips were cold, but they warmed up quickly as Ianto kissed him.  The kiss didn’t last long, but it certainly warmed Ianto up quite a bit. 

“Let’s head back in,” Jack invited, holding his elbow out to Ianto.

He threaded his hand around Jack’s elbow, and together they headed back into the Hub, Ianto feeling content for possibly the first time that day. 

What he and Jack had might have been undefinable at that moment, but he really didn’t care.  And maybe there was a danger that he would be moving too fast, but there was something Ianto suddenly wanted to ask.

“Jack, just what are you doing Christmas Eve…?”

 

**********

 

_The shadow under the ice backed away from the small opening it had made.  It hadn’t ever had someone speak up to it like that, and honestly, it was a little bit impressed by the puny human’s chutzpah at telling it off the way it had._

_Maybe it would just go and stomp all over Tokyo instead…_

_It swam away with a stroke of its powerful tail, heading back out to sea.  If the city above had such tiny yet strong life in it, then perhaps it deserved to be left alone._

_At least, this time._

 

 

 


End file.
